We’re on a 9/80 schedule and I’m still trying to make sense out of it. When I say ‘we,’ I mean that my husband has been working this way for a few years, while I generally exist in a timeless void. Now I’m back in the Time Dimension and trying to get my bearings.
Basically 9/80 means you work 80 hours in nine days. This has been relatively unclear to me because my husband a) travels a lot and b) works tons of overtime. Trying to discern his underlying schedule is like trying to spot me under the many layers I wear to hockey games. Something’s going on in there, not sure what exactly... So we work nine hours Monday through Thursday. On Friday, we either work eight hours or we get the whole day off. Four hours of overtime each week, tape them together and turn it into alternating three-day weekends! The reason I’m focusing so much on this is that I want to go to grad school (online anyway), and I’m trying to figure out if I can somehow create the time to study and do coursework. Our weeknights are like this: Clock out at 6 pm Cook and eat dinner Work out for an hour, half an hour to shower and get ready for bed ...because all of a sudden it’s almost 9 pm! I’ve been here before. I went back to school during my first marriage, working full-time during my entire freshman year. We would get up at 6 am and carpool downtown. I would take my morning class, then ride my bike to work, put in a full day, ride my bike back to campus for my night class, then ride home and do homework, going to bed at 2 am. Then I started collapsing, had to go through a bunch of medical tests, and basically discovered that even someone in her twenties needs more than four hours of sleep a night. I dropped out partway into my first term of sophomore year, and didn’t pick up the thread again until after my divorce. That’s, ah, the other thing. I want to do this - meet my outrageous academic dream - and skip the parts that didn’t go so well the first time. The health issues, the divorce, then the financial catastrophe. Advanced education, to me, has always seemed like a gauntlet. You go through an intensive experience for a short time, something fraught with brain drain and all-nighters, and you come out the other side into a new world of opportunity and perspective. This has been on my mind lately, because I had one of those articles that encourages you to ask your partner ‘deep thoughts’ questions. I asked him what accomplishment he was most proud of in his life. (I usually know his answers to most of that type of question). He surprised me by replying that it was going to grad school. Wow, really?? It’s making me feel like a kid looking through the window at a candy store. This place, this place where we work... I got to hear an interview candidate give a presentation today that he said nobody else had heard, as he is on his way to defend his dissertation. Waaaah! *I* wanna defend a dissertation! There are a couple of parts to this project, all of which I have to figure out in the brief windows of time that are available, unless I can somehow stave off my curiosity until the weekend. First, figure out whether I can pass the GRE, which is a special standardized test - or whether there is some kind of nifty shortcut that allows me to get into grad school without it. Second, probably do some self-study to make sure I can get a passing score. I haven’t taken a math class since 1993 and I suspect this may be a problem. Third, figure out what other supporting documentation I will need, such as recommendation letters from professors who have not seen me since, at best, 2004 - or, again, whether I can get around this somehow. Fourth, hack a way to get in for free, get someone else to pay for it, or, even better, get paid to attend! Fifth, figure out how to get on the Dean’s List without disrupting my day job. Or, at least, disrupting it in only a positive direction. Which should hopefully be easier considering all those tasty three-day weekends. I knew nothing the first time around. I had no idea, for instance, that there were study guides for the SATs or any of the other standardized tests. If I had known, I probably would have asked for one for my 12th birthday and read it over and over until the cover fell off. Neither did I realize what the three-digit numbers were that followed course titles. That’s how I found myself in a graduate-level course as a freshman. No matter who you are or what you are doing, there is always something so “obvious” that nobody thinks to describe or explain it. I am going to be the person who finds that out. It’s like if ‘obvious’ had a loading dock out back, and I’m always wandering around out there trying to find an unlocked door, when the front has a giant neon sign with an arrow. One ‘obvious’ thing would probably be, don’t try to go to school full-time while working full-time, since you already know that is too hard. Another might be, don’t start planning this type of project when you only got over COVID-19 like six weeks ago. Ah, but it should be obvious by now, I can’t rest without a challenge. Maybe I’ll never do it, but it sure is fun to think about. Besides, if I can’t find the time to do it while we’re under a stay-at-home order and I have no work commute, then when can I? I got a new job, and one of my first priorities was setting up automatic deductions for my retirement plan.
Hopefully, this is the most boring thing I’ll ever say. It should be boring because it should be seen as: Almost too obvious to mention Routine Simple When instead it’s one of the most commonly procrastinated tasks. Women especially tend to refer to it as confusing or overwhelming. I did, too, until my first husband spent our entire house savings behind my back and I wound up divorced and flat broke. Now I think of financial planning as the ultimate in self-care. You think a hot bath and a massage would be relaxing? Try knowing you have an emergency savings cushion. Out of all the causes of a tension headache, in my opinion, money worries are the worst. I used to lie awake and cry myself to sleep because I was so freaked out about my finances. Now, it’s one of the touch points I use when I want to calm down. I set up my first retirement account when I was 26, a couple years after my divorce. I felt old as the hills, like I had been procrastinating for years, but the truth was that most of my jobs didn’t allow for such an option. I remember the first time I got a quarterly retirement statement, and it said I had about $40. “There are double digits in my retirement account!” I said to everyone in my office. “I can retire for... half a day!” This is a good joke to make around older, more established people. It makes them feel better about their own situation. Fast forward nearly twenty years and that account has significantly more in it than my entire annual earnings from that job. Time does most of the work. It really is “set it and forget it.” For every minute you spend reading materials and figuring out where you want to allocate your funds, you get a year of peace and tranquility. I was determined to learn all this investing stuff as a young woman because I had learned the hard way that you can’t trust anyone else to do it for you. I also knew, from observing older women among my friends and family, that I would probably get old, too. Older ladies that I knew were almost exclusively broke. It’s been my observation that elderly people tend to live around 15 years longer than they thought they would. Nobody can picture themselves being old, frail, and poor. Why would you want to?? I understood, though, that if I had forty years to prepare, that was plenty of time to try to take care of Old Me. Even if I always earned well below the median. Even if I lived alone and had to do it all by myself. The irony here is that my frugality attracted my second husband. Not only am I still in charge of my own money, I have a partner to share expenses, and he’s in charge of his own money, too. This is where the challenge came in. It was time to set up my new portfolio at my new job. Since we are working from home, for the same employer, in the same room, and it was the end of the day on Friday, my hubby noticed what I was doing. (Probably because I talk to myself a lot). He wandered over and started peeking over my shoulder. This is a moment of choice. It’s so easy to sit back passively and let another person make our decisions, take our risks, do our labor. Like when I had to assemble my own office chair this weekend - it only took an hour and an Allen wrench, but I was also doing laundry and I would have loved to just have someone else do it! There is nothing like the pride of knowing you’ve done it all yourself, though. I’m sitting in my chair right now, enjoying it so much more than the wooden folding chair I was using over the past three weeks. And that is an analogy for the two types of retirement I could have. I thanked my husband for his interest and reminded him that I had a strong track record in choosing my own investments. I broke even in 2008 (+0.25%) and I’ve beat the market a few years. He went back to what he was doing, probably smirking on the inside, because he loves that I am good with money. He also loves that I can stand up for myself. The default at my employer, it turns out, is to set aside 10% and put it in a target date fund. That’s totally reasonable. It was a weird moment though to see that they had chosen the same date I would, and also to know that there are now only twenty years left of my traditional career arc. It’s a long time, though! I maxed out on everything. I like to think of it as being ‘extra.’ I like to think of my investment choices as somewhat flamboyant. Rather than whatever image people have of extreme savings, I like to see it more as the ‘sequins and a feather boa’ version. We’re allowed to put 15% of our incomes into our 401(k), pre-tax, so I do. I also put aside another 10% for my IRA. We save more than that, of course - we like to live on just half our income - but where we put the rest of it is a different subject for a different day. Where did I put my funds? It doesn’t matter, really, because there are only maybe a dozen or so options for most employers. Those funds are generally only available to institutional investors, which is cool because it means I couldn’t get into them as a freelancer. Really the only thing that matters is that Old Me is going to look back and be proud of the decisions that Young Me made. We still have time, and time is better than money. (Although money is pretty darn great, too). People often used to ask me how I found so much time to read. Now I’m wondering that myself.
When I was young, I took the bus everywhere, and I would often have a 40-minute work commute. Reading created a privacy bubble and kept me comfortable. It also meant I always had a hard-cover library book in my bag, a bag that probably weighed 15 pounds on average. When I had a car, I eventually discovered audiobooks, but the CDs only played at one speed. It would take me all week to finish a book. When I quit my day job, I might read five hours a day. Then I got a smartphone and eventually rediscovered audiobooks. Over the course of a few years I learned that I could play them back at 1.25, then 2x, and now 3x. I could finish half a book on a distance run. I’d listen to the other half while I cooked dinner and did laundry. Then I figured out how to speed-read ebooks. I can read a digital book at double the speed of a paper book. Sometimes I would read two books a day. Then I got COVID-19 and I couldn’t really read much of anything at all for a couple weeks. Then I got a day job again. When do you people find all that time to read all those books?? I don’t have a work commute. My desk is 20 feet from my bed. I used to read during my breaks and at lunch. Now I find myself doing chores or running errands. We work a 9/80 schedule. That means we work 9 hours Monday through Thursday so that we can have alternate Fridays off, which means two three-day weekends a month not including holidays. This is magnificent! It also means we’re done for the day at 6 pm. Four hours until bedtime. Hour to cook and eat dinner Hour to work out, half an hour to shower That leaves 90 minutes of leisure time. But... that’s not enough time to read a book! *sigh* I hear that other people supposedly watch 5 hours of TV a day on average. When, is what I’d like to know? Do they start at 6:00 and just leave it on until 11 pm? Aren’t they tired?? This is the great danger for me, the fatal attraction: the desire to read “one more chapter” until it’s 1 am. What I need is a sleeping helmet that somehow delivers entire plots directly into my brain so I wake up knowing what happened. ...although if that were possible, surely it would work while we were awake and doing other things? I looked back at my records, and I’ve read 14 books in the last three weeks. Others might think that was quite a lot. For me, doesn’t it mean it’s taking me a day and a half to read a book? This is why I’m thinking it’s time for a reading weekend. Reading is relaxation. Reading is my way of connecting with an outside world that I’m not spending much time visiting lately. Reading is the thing I do that makes me me. If I can’t do it during the week, then I’m hereby canceling everything else and doing it over the weekend. Somehow I will eventually adjust and figure out how to make more time for reading on weekdays, too. All I really need is another hour, an hour created out of waking time and not robbed from sleeping time. Now I have only two questions: What should I read this weekend? What are you reading? I wouldn’t believe this if I weren’t directly involved in it myself. It wouldn’t make sense to me if I didn’t know the rest of the cast of characters. In fact, even though I have a front-row seat I still have trouble believing it or making sense out of it.
This is how a hoax works. Back in mid-March, I was exposed to COVID-19. I know exactly who gave it to me. I’m one of a group of ten people who got sick, out of sixteen who were exposed. (Two are young kids and eight are under 40). There is a bit of a question of whether the person who gave it to me also gave it to Trainer Dude, or whether she got it from him. It’s a bit of a moot point. Not only will nobody ever know, but they both have similar attitudes and similar behaviors at this point. The main differences between them are that she is single and has a corporate job, while he is a dad who runs his own business. This man, who either got COVID-19 from the same person I did, or gave it to her first, believes that the pandemic is a hoax. How is this possible?? He believes that it’s “just a flu.” He believes that a few people may die from it, just like the regular flu, but that it is no bigger deal than that. Basically he doesn’t think it’s real. Even though he and his girlfriend were sick, even though at least four of his training clients were sick, even though he is part of a fairly large cluster - he doesn’t think it’s real. “What about me??” I said to my friend who was relating all this. “Does he realize I had to go to the hospital and get a chest x-ray?” This is where I start to struggle and have some epistemological issues. I know that my experience was real, because I lived it. The only way I can interpret the evidence of my physical senses and my lived reality is to assume that it is empirically true, that it really happened and that I’m not imagining it, or watching a video of it from the afterlife. For someone who knows me to claim that my experience was part of a hoax raises several questions.
The two people in this anecdote, Trainer Dude and my Patient Zero, share a lot of beliefs and behaviors. They both believe that they are now 100% immune to COVID. They both quit social distancing as soon as they were well, in defiance of county orders. They think that anyone who is still worried has anxiety problems. These are factual claims that are internally consistent and shared, apparently, by many in our region. My quaranteam buddy and I also share internally consistent beliefs that contrast with these. We both know people who were hospitalized with COVID and put on ventilators; we both were sick for at least a month and still suffering some symptoms weeks later; we both got secondary lung infections and had to take antibiotics. I know five people who have lost someone. My friend’s wife died of COVID. My other friend’s dad died of COVID. For me to believe that “this is a hoax,” I would have to pick apart the stories of multiple friends. I would have to assume that each of them was either lying or going insane. Then I would have to find a way to explain why their stories were so similar. Do these people I’ve known for so long actually know each other, and for some reason they never told me? Because they are colluding? Would this imply that I’m part of a conspiracy (one that I can’t remember, implying that I’m either being drugged or hypnotized or that I have multiple personalities) - and that my friends are part of *yet another* conspiracy? They’re part of something that I don’t know about, even though it apparently has the same aims and practices as the one I don’t even know I’m in? Isn’t it simpler and easier to just assume that the virus *is* real and that these dozens of people are telling the truth? Especially since I had it, too? Why would I be a part of a hoax about this pandemic? At the time I got ill, I worked for myself. I didn’t stand to benefit from missing work or collecting on some kind of claim. I already had the ability to take naps on demand. I can’t figure out, even from the perspective of a devil’s advocate, how I would personally stand to gain from faking being deathly ill for a month. I also can’t figure out how someone would financially benefit from it. There’s this weird conspiracy theory that Bill Gates caused COVID so he could profit from making vaccines. But... he’s already a billionaire?? And it’s cheaper and easier to just make software?? Elon Musk brought up the same point, that it would be a lot easier to make a profit building another website than making cars or going to space. (Or selling limited edition hats...) Same reason I went back to work, because I can make more money faster and more reliably with an admin job than I could with a book deal. I don’t tend to believe in conspiracy theories because I am one of the only people I know who is capable of keeping a secret. More people should notice that it’s almost impossible to coordinate a large group doing anything, anything at all, from choosing a restaurant to meeting at an agreed location at the same time. The conspiracy theories that we know about? We know about. People just are not that organized. Which is another reason I know that COVID-19 is real. Because it’s been a giant bungled mess from the get-go. That’s entirely consistent with what anyone can observe of human behavior in groups. We’re quaranteaming, which means we’ve been seeing each other in person an average of three times a month. Our quaranteam buddy, QT, has been getting a lot of flak about this from her other friends. Not because they’re worried about her exposure risk - on the contrary. They’re jealous and they think she should be open to hanging out with them as well. Most people in our community think we should be 100% open and back to “normal.” The rationales behind these opinions are interesting and worth looking at. On the one hand, our friends say, they are immune to COVID-19 and therefore safe. On the other hand, since they got tests and we didn’t, we shouldn’t assume that we actually had it. (We must have been sick with something with identical symptoms, for an identical time period, that was definitely NOT COVID. Which, if true, means they should be afraid of getting that as well, just as they want us to fear that we could still pick up COVID from the community). This is a really weird mix of beliefs. I definitely had it, which means if an infected person sneezes on me, it will magically evaporate on contact and can never scientifically smear onto anyone else. Since you did not get a test, you have to assume you are at risk - from anyone *except* me, because I now have mystical virus-elimination powers. I’m like... human Lysol! Others in our community, like on Nextdoor, are fixated on the problem of why they aren’t allowed to go to the salon and get more nail art. All they have to do is disinfect the surfaces before they reopen! Everything is fine! Completely absent seems to be any understanding of what “airborne” means. These are the reasons why I feel no urge to go out. The people who would be at stores or restaurants are people who seem to be lacking in even the most basic grasp of how viral transmission works. Even now. It’s not that this is scary - I’m afraid of far fewer things since facing death. It’s not scary. It’s GROSS. I read that something like 1/3 of women and nearly 2/3 of men in the US never wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Not sure how much that changed, but I’m willing to bet every single one of them intellectually knows we’re supposed to wash our hands. I bet they could demonstrate, for the chance at winning $50, that they have the technical competence of washing their hands thoroughly. They just don’t think it affects them or anyone around them. Why waste 20 seconds half a dozen times a day? That’s like... minutes! Every now and then I imagine going back to the world that once was. I imagine going out to do things I was doing earlier this year. The first things that come to mind are the long lines, the trash and wet drink rings that people leave behind at their tables, the overflowing trash cans, the shrieking kids, the various people who kick the back of my seat. Being home for a few months has reminded me of the peace and tranquility of my own living room. I think about driving somewhere, and I remember what it’s like to be stuck in traffic, the people who head for the exit across three or four lanes without signaling, the tailgaters, the honking, the time we saw a car pulled over on the freeway with three-foot flames coming from under the hood. Where am I going in this fantasy? Work? The airport? Ah, the airport. More long lines, having my bag searched, the security pat-downs, the last-minute gate changes, the interminable waits at the restroom, the inevitable bare dirty foot stuck between the seats and propped up on my armrest. It’ll have to happen eventually. At some point, “things will go back to normal” and I’ll have to start readjusting to the epic noise, filth, and inconsiderate behavior that used to be a routine part of all our days. When will I venture forth to hang out in my community? I’ll go out like everything is normal when we’re at zero cases. Zero cases would actually indicate to me that things were under control and that I had nothing to worry about from getting a second case of maybe a different strain of COVID-19. Honestly, right now I’m worried about picking up anything, the common cold or the flu or *any* respiratory illness. Staying home, and wearing my N95 mask plus a face shield on the rare occasions when I’m forced to go out, seems hugely preferable to being sick in bed again any time soon. When will I go out and travel again? When would I fly on a plane? When both my continent and the other continent are at zero cases. I have it in mind that there will eventually - soon, within a year or two - be some sort of personal air filtration device that can be worn for up to 12 hours without recharging. Hopefully more like 18 or 24. I picture a helmet or perhaps an entire flight suit. If I had something like this, I would consider flying sooner. I might even rent or lease one if I felt like they had a realistic way of being cleaned between uses. Until then, I really can’t see being at an airport in any city or getting on any plane for the near future. It’s not entirely COVID that I’m worried about, although having had it, I’d really prefer not to die that way, thanks. How depressing. What I’m worried about is that my nearest airport had around 700,000 individual human beings per day passing through it, not including the occasional companion animal. If there’s any respiratory illness anywhere on the planet, chances are it will appear at LAX within a day. I started flying alone at age seven, a time when I was still learning to write in cursive and memorizing my multiplication tables. When I think back, I probably picked up a cold or some other bug as often as 1 in 3 flights. I was sick for three weeks after my first international trip. I was sick after the trip when my husband proposed. I was sick as recently as our wedding anniversary last year. Now that I recognize the pattern, there is no “back to normal” for me. At *minimum* I will never fly again without safety glasses and an N95 mask. I’ll go out again, eventually. I’ll wear more PPE when I fly. I’ll probably be more avoidant when I go out in public, like the movie theater (and I might wear a mask there, too). Will I start socializing with friends and acquaintances? If they can demonstrate that they understand the basic fundamentals of public health, yeah, probably. When we’re down to zero cases. I’ll go out when I feel like going out is more fun or relaxing than staying right here, in my nice clean comfortable peer-pressure-free living room. I started a new job with a dress code for the first time in over a decade. Eventually, I’m going to need clothes.
Right now, we have the great good fortune to be working from home. That’s policy, and we can expect that it may continue this way for the rest of 2020, or possibly forever. Technically, though, we may have to start going in to the office in person with only 48 hours’ notice. So... could be January 2021, could be... this Wednesday? There are a few issues with this possible timeline for me.
This is why my strategic plan for a new work wardrobe has to start with a way to acquire appropriate clothes on short notice. First I need to assess how many days I can look pulled-together while waiting for anything new to come in. What’s in my closet right now? From what I’ve seen, most people hang onto clothes that they almost never wear - or may never have worn, since the tags are still attached - and have ‘looks’ in the closet that are not their usual style. These items should be tried on for fit. They may also turn out to work in different combinations that the owner has never worn together before. Laying things out on the bed or stacking them next to each other can sometimes reveal interesting new matches, based on color and fabric. The second step of my plan is to sign up for a subscription box and hope that they have a decent selection in my size. Expedited delivery options would also be good. This matters because I’m in a situation that a lot of others probably share. I don’t identify with the size that fits me today. I have no intention of going out and buying an entire new work wardrobe that I would fully intend not to fit any more within a couple of months. Renting clothes that I can send back seems like a good way to at least pretend that my current size is temporary. I just finished reading Project 333, and I’m intrigued with the idea of having only 33 seasonal items. This definitely seems more cost-effective when starting from scratch! Does it work, though? Where we live, there are three seasons as far as I can tell: hot, windy, and chilly. For the hot season, I could easily base a wardrobe around three pairs of shoes and 30 short-sleeved dresses. That would make 30 outfits that could be worn from April through November, and in those nine months, each dress would appear only nine times. (Including weekends). I like to do these arithmetical exercises, because in my experience, most people can’t believe that only a few items could possibly give them enough variety. In my work with hoarders, I like to give the exercise: How Many Shirts? If you woke up one day and suddenly all your clothes had vanished into an alternate dimension, how many would you need to replace to have all your needs met? What is the right number? Then we count what they actually have. I point out that 55 is way more than they just showed on their worksheet. They keep them all anyway. Let’s say that instead of buying 30 dresses, which seems like a bonkers excessive amount (no repeats for a month, really?), I decide to go with interchangeable skirts and tops. I get 15 of each, and stick with the three shoes. 15 skirts x 15 tops would make 225 possible combinations, or enough to go over seven months without repeating an outfit! Part of why this doesn’t make sense to my people is that almost none of their clothes actually are interchangeable. There are two other factors, which are that the bulk of their wardrobe may no longer fit, and a lot of it may be part of the ‘laundry carpet,’ so they are really only wearing the same few t-shirts over and over again. In a way, 55 t-shirts is really only one outfit, a uniform of sorts, where only the image changes slightly each day. Another way to plan by the numbers would be 10 bottoms x 10 light tops x 10 outer layers, like a skirt, shell top, and cardigan. That’s actually worse, at 1000 possible combinations, or nearly three years with no repeats. Strangely, the way to get the most possible variety in a wardrobe is to have modular pieces that don’t necessarily seem all that special by themselves. My people will choose a garment because it seems so unique, usually due to the pattern or fabric. The result of that is a lot of things that don’t go with anything else and never get worn. It creates an illusion of variety that is not borne out in reality. Personally, I don’t want people to notice my clothes or remember what I wore. I want to be noticed for my contributions. When people think of me, I want them to think of how much I get done, how easy I am to work with, and how reliable I am. Not that I look great but that they want me on their projects. If my clothes have a message, I want it to be: competent. This is what I’ll probably go with: Pants and skirt, black (2) Pants and skirt, navy blue (2) Pants and skirt, gray (2) Pants and skirt, white (2) Sleeveless shell tops in white, light blue, red, purple, and black (5) Short sleeve tops in white, light blue, red, purple, and black (5) Long sleeve tops (blazer or cardigan) in white, light blue, red, purple, and black (5) Dresses in light blue, red, purple, gray, navy blue, and black (6) Three pairs of shoes and a pair of boots (4) 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 5 + 10 + 6 + 4 = 33 items Any pants or skirt with any sleeveless or short-sleeve top, with or without a warm layer + Any dress with or without a coordinating warm outer layer [(8x5)+(8x5)+(8x5)+(8x5)+6+6] = [(40x4)+12] = 172 combinations, or enough for nearly 6 months with no repeats. Who’s counting, anyway? This was the year I was going to turn in my book proposal. I had bites from an agent and an editor. I had a plan. I had an outline. I had pages of notes. I was actively working on it and it seemed like I was on track to finish by my personal deadline of mid-June.
I decided to put all that aside for now and take a day job instead. I haven’t given up on Being a Writer, not yet anyway. What I did was to make a strategic decision based on new inputs. This year hadn’t been going all that well. First Quarter 2020 was a mess. I was still in bandages from my surgery, then my hubby had a severe eye injury, then we both got the flu, then we had to put our dog down, then my hubby’s bike got stolen... Week after week, disruption followed by chaos. Then I began Second Quarter with COVID-19. These things aren’t even problems, not for a writer. In a certain light, they can be regarded as unexpected gifts of interesting material. Something to write about. What happened was that in the weeks that I spent severely ill, feeling that death was near, my perspective shifted. I realized that the world had changed. My plans needed to change, too.
My husband’s employer (and now mine, too) sent everyone to work from home quite early, before any state in the US had a stay-at-home order. Our county had had one death, but the schools, bars, gyms, churches, and everything else were still open. Airports hadn’t even begun screening. Only Disneyland made the decision faster. This is part of why I made the choice to go to work with them. Imagine a workplace culture where employees are literally regarded as irreplaceable assets whose safety must be protected at all costs. Different, right? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Last year, my husband was out on travel over half the time. We barely saw each other. A couple times we had mere hours within a few weeks. This year has started to make up for the time away, considering that he is now in our living room on conference calls up to 10-12 hours a day. Here, in our living room, where I used to work quietly alone. Now our home is a company-sponsored conference room. If I’m going to be here anyway, I may as well put on a headset and join the party. It’s not like I can leave and work at a cafe. Going back to work has been everything I hoped it would be while I was ill. The time passes very quickly. I learn something new every day. I am rapidly catching up with several new titles of enterprise software. I had met a dozen or so of my new colleagues before the shutdown, and it’s fun to be able to talk to them more. There are other reasons why I feel like taking a day job was a good idea, as opposed to poking away at my now-obsolete book proposal. This is the first place I have ever worked where anyone takes my degree seriously. I feel accepted as an academic peer. I’ve already been invited to a few separate ideation meetings, where I was able to contribute as an active participant rather than a clerk. I could plausibly apply for a fellowship here, not just tuition reimbursement. My goal in writing a book was to share my perspective in some way that would impact others. What if working for an organization made a bigger dent than my book ever could? What if I also earned more? What if I did both, the book and the job? It occurred to me that my writing has been a pressure valve for my life, and that if I felt very busy again, it might blast its steam into any part of my schedule that it could. It also gives me more to write about. More power dynamics, more colloquialisms, more quirky characters. I have a window into something that I otherwise would not, which is how this particular profession handles the shift to WFH and positions itself against the pandemic. One of our colleagues, a young PhD from a family of medical doctors and researchers, is convinced that our strategy is not nearly cautious enough. This is interesting in the context of a beach community where everyone else is busy demanding the rights to surf, go to the bar, and have access to hair dye and nail art. We’re most likely continuing to WFH for at least the rest of the calendar year. I just learned this a few days ago, and it helps to validate my decision. Where could I work on my book when my husband and I are confined to our 650-square-foot apartment for the duration? When there may not be open seating in the library or the coffee shop for the rest of the year either? Cases are accelerating rapidly in our county. I see no (sound, rational) reason for a major shift in social distancing policy in the near future. I wanted something interesting to do. I wanted to be a part of something great and to be where the action is, instead of moldering away on my couch. There are intriguing financial benefits, too, beyond the obvious. I maxed out on life insurance and long-term disability, having had recent cause to believe that I truly could expire any day. What a load off my mind, that if I die suddenly, at least my poor hubby could buy a house. It’s a bit of a paradox, but having a day job is relaxing in many ways. There’s no time to fret about world events. Most of the day is highly structured. Now, if I find time to write a book, it’s remarkable, rather than belated. If I get published, it’s great news, rather than overdue. There is plenty to be going on with. Project 333 is the kind of great idea that doesn’t even feel like an idea. People tend to forget that someone like Courtney Carver actually innovated something. The more simple and elegant a solution is, the more it seems obvious - yet it sure wasn’t!
The premise of Project 333 is to take a break from what might be an out-of-control closet and only wear 33 items for three months. That’s where the ‘333’ comes from. I know precisely one person - one of my clients - who probably has fewer than 33 items in her wardrobe. Then there’s my husband. I just asked him, and since we’ve been WFH he has been using: 5 t-shirts 5 pairs of shorts 1 pair of shoes = 11 items. Carver’s book includes 33 chapters (of course) exploring the technicalities of the project. She offers a few examples of people who have tried it out, with lists of which items they included and what color. This is fascinating stuff, and there could probably be a companion volume to Project 333 of just color grids of various people’s capsule wardrobes. I used to be an inveterate thrift store shopper, and I had so many clothes that my closet rod snapped and dumped everything onto the floor. It turns out that being ‘organized’ and cramming everything in on special hangers is... heavy. So was the unconscious burden of keeping clothes across six sizes, never knowing which size I’d be wearing three months later. The more I worked with my people, the chronically disorganized and the hoarders, the more clarity I got about my wardrobe. I had a lot in common with my clients. Buying things for the pattern or the fabric even if I didn’t wear them Keeping gifts even if they didn’t go with anything else Hanging onto old clothes even if they didn’t fit Trying on several things, not realizing that most of them always wind up back in the pile Always having a reason to keep something and never having a reason to let something go I call this the ‘bottom up’ method. Look at what we have and work from there. What I gradually learned was a more systemic ‘top down’ method, figuring out what is actually needed. The concept of designing a wardrobe was totally lost on me. This whole idea of choosing only things that work on my body type and interchange with each other... huh? How do people do that?? I’m exactly the audience for a book like Project 333. Courtney Carver is right. Working with a minimal wardrobe really is better and easier. There are so many more interesting and important things to think about rather than what we’re wearing every day. Especially first thing in the morning, it’s a huge improvement to be able to grab something and feel right about it on the first try. Getting ready to start the day is one of the toughest times for the chronically disorganized. Project 333 is an ideal way to cut down on complications and have at least one area of life go smoothly. Favorite quote: Dress for the life you have right now, and you will move through it with more ease and grace. I was asked to give an impromptu speech about civic engagement today. This is an awkward kind of question for me, because it’s almost impossible to talk about in a neutral, nonpartisan way. Yet that’s the only way to really get anything accomplished any more.
Right now it seems like a lot of people are more motivated to stop their “opponents” from doing anything than they are to do anything specific themselves. We have to pull back from that image of “winning” and find a way to frame our projects as non-zero-sum. Meaning, there is more than one winner and there are many ways to win. I mentioned five things in my speech, which I wish was as organized when it was coming out of my mouth as it is here:
Most people are complainers. Everyone complains about things - I think it is the main driver of all innovation and progress - but most people are *only* willing to complain. I’m a helper by nature, with many years of training in social services. When someone has an issue, I often know how to get it resolved. I’ll ask someone, what do you want to have happen? Almost nobody ever has an answer. If someone I know very well is annoying me with a complaint, I will ask, Do you have a request? Meaning, if you want me to do something for you, ask me and I will probably do it, but otherwise, shut the heck up. For example, if I’m late all the time, I probably deserve to be told off in some way, but I’m never going to stop unless you ask me for what you want. What counts as “not late” to you? Get specific. If you want me standing by the door with my coat on by T-minus whatever, believe me, I can’t read your mind. You’re going to need to spell it out. It’s very much the same thing with local issues. People will go on until they turn purple about “traffic” or “this place sucks” but they don’t usually have an actual, specific plan for what they would rather see instead. You can show up to town hall meetings, campaign for various candidates, write letters to the editor, vote for every single thing, sign petitions, apply to get propositions on the ballot, host a podcast, march with a sign over your shoulder... but if you aren’t clear about exactly what you want, nothing will happen. How would you even know that you got what you wanted if you were never sure exactly what it was? Part of this is an issue of empowerment, the feeling that you can ask for things and get them, the feeling that if you try to make something happen, it probably will happen. What I’ve learned is that power is not given, it’s taken. Power can also accrue through various unofficial means. It comes in different forms: charisma, leverage, influence, gravitas, money, job titles, specialized knowledge. An example would be someone like my husband, who sought out special training as an EMR. I’ve seen him in action several times. He will rush up and identify himself as an emergency medical responder. Then he starts asking questions. No matter where this happened, people would probably react in the same way, by making space for him, watching and listening. At that point, if he called out for someone to call 911, someone would obey, no questions asked. Obey! Most people don’t want to be in power during a crisis. They don’t want to be the one with the fire extinguisher. They don’t want to be the one to get the snake out of the toilet. They don’t want to make decisions, they don’t want responsibility, and they certainly don’t want to be held accountable for the results. Likewise, most people don’t want to bother learning whether something is handled by their city, their county, or the state. They might be able to get their request granted almost immediately by their district rep, but when it comes down to it, they’d rather complain for eighty-five years than spend twenty minutes typing into a web form. People have more power than they think they do. We all have the power to pay attention, to introduce ourselves to others, to ask questions, to learn new things. We have the power to imagine all the ways that things could be better. Not in the abstract of “things” like “the universe” or “land of rainbow unicorns” but *specific* things. Things like potholes or noise ordinances or how fast the traffic flows through a certain intersection. When we have a more specific idea of how we want the world to look, what we want to see happening around us, then it becomes more obvious that a lot of the time, we can start making it happen, all by ourselves. My parents taught me this when I was a preschooler. They got together with some other parents in our neighborhood. Each family took a street and a garbage bag. We all picked up trash and empty cans, and we turned in the cans for the deposit and bought popsicles with the money. I was unclear on the concept that other kids were doing this, too, because I couldn’t see them (and I was 4), so of course I thought I deserved all the credit. There are some policy decisions I’ve made over the years that make it obvious what I should do in certain situations. I always pick up broken glass at the park, even if I have to get a stick and dig it out of the mud. I sleep with my phone by the bed in case I hear someone screaming in the night, so I can call 911 right away. When I find a wallet or an ATM card, I turn it in. I don’t have to ask for permission to do any of these things. I’ve done what anyone can do to be more involved and engaged. I’ve decided that if I can easily help others, I will do it. Sometimes I will help others even at considerable effort, like writing them a reference letter or revising their resume. I do nice things because it’s fun, and also because it helps me to feel like I am a person who knows how to get things done. I like to be where the action is. Anyone can make decisions about what they are willing to do and what they refuse to do. After that, it’s just a question of how many things you think you can do and how many people you think you can help. Most of us are probably feeling it, the tangible levels of tension and dread. The restless sleep. The bizarre dreams and outright nightmares.
These are the reasons I run. Or used to, before the last time I went out and ran myself into a full-blown case of COVID-19. I’m still recovering, still not totally feeling normal, still having trouble with concentration and focus sometimes. External events are obviously a bigger deal than my private little hassles. Still they are real to me. We all work with what we’ve got. I’ve been trying to rebuild my base level of fitness on a cheap, clunky, creaky elliptical machine next to my bed. I skipped a day, and I paid for it. Wandering around all day with that anxious feeling in the belly, that tax-audit, principal’s office, performance review, collections agency, uhoh Dad’s mad feeling. That Sirens all day Running feet and panting breath in alley below our apartment Protestors marching within a mile of us Helicopters, sirens, helicopters I smell smoke, where is it coming from?? What the heck is going on, will it ever stop What can I personally do Feeling. Sometimes it isn’t clear at all what you can personally do in a situation. Sometimes it takes time to figure out. Sometimes it’s better to stay out of the way. Sometimes you realize you’re in someone else’s movie, and not only are you not the star, you’re not even an extra, in fact you’re blocking the shot. Other times, it’s clear that it’s your time to step up, because you’re the one who is accountable, or you are the only person who can really fix something. Either way, it doesn’t help anyone to have a toxic stew of stress chemicals burning you up from the inside. Burnout is largely physical. We have to pace ourselves, and the more that is on the line, the more important it is... yet paradoxically, the harder it is. The same predictable things happen every time, when we aren’t sleeping, we don’t have enough down time, we aren’t eating right and we have no way of dumping all that cortisol. Our sleep is disturbed even more We lose patience We get snappy, irritable, and mean We feel weepy and we’re not always sure why (except when we are) We can’t think straight We get spun up over even minor decisions Something that is the same in martial arts training and in leadership is a thing called “stress inoculation.” It’s possible to gradually train out the stress response in your body, so that you don’t react the same way even in the most intense conditions. In both roles, you take ownership of yourself as first responder and chief decider. Nobody is coming and it’s your problem to figure out. There is no more time and the moment is now. Some of this comes from having a plan. Some of it comes from having a formally acknowledged title and clearly defined responsibilities. Some of it is just that training in managing the physical stress response. After a while, you feel it. You can feel the difference between when your neurochemicals are messing with you and creating the artificial sense of a real problem, or an actual real problem. For some of us, a crisis is actually less stressful, because it’s obvious what to do. There is a specific issue that might actually go away if the right steps are taken. All this physical anxiety is *for* something. I felt that way when my husband badly hurt his eye and I needed to get him to the hospital. Weirdly, I’ve also felt this way during the stay-at-home order, and again when I got COVID. “Just get through this, nothing else matters right now.” Right now, three days into a riot-induced countywide curfew, I have no idea what to do. So I do what I always do when I don’t have a plan, which is to try to run it off. Five miles a day, miles of nowhere, going yet more nowhere. It feels like a metaphor for life right now. Perpetual motion, tension, stress, with no end in sight and nothing to show for it. Like a hamster on a wheel. For now, at least, the ball of tension is gone. I can chill for an hour or two. Later tonight, sure, I’ll probably wake myself up every two hours. I’ve been having social distancing nightmares - have you? - including walking down the street six feet apart with my ex-husband, and accidentally bumping into the Plandemic lady on the sidewalk. (We both went UGH). This is in addition to the COVID nightmares - fighting a twelve-foot spider with fireplace tools in each hand, millipedes crawling out of my veins, downloading the virus by wi-fi into all our electronics. The sleeping nightmares and the waking nightmares. With all this going on, it’s easy to lose sight of how great it is that I can already do five miles on the elliptical. I survived! I lived through a month of coronavirus and I’m getting my body back! Reclaiming my flesh and staking ownership of myself. In the midst of everything else, I can hit pause for an hour. I can try to get back into my body. I can try to remember that it’s the only vehicle I have to navigate this dumb old world. It isn’t wrong to center yourself, or to sleep, or to do whatever you need to do to restore your focus. There are still 16 or 23 hours a day to worry about everything else. World events will keep happening, whatever they are, for good or ill. One of the few things you can control is your interior ability to cope with things. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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